This invention relates in general to the field of data processing systems and more particularly to a unique system and method for the storage and retrieval of business information.
In the modern business environment, many transactions involve highly structured bidding processes. These processes are common in contracts which involve public funding, such as work performed for the federal government, as well as large private contracts. In these contexts, the preparation of a written proposal by a company bidding for a contract represents a tremendous amount of work and a correspondingly large expense to the company. Because of the fact that many companies will bid on the same type of work over and over again or will bid for work from the same entity or agency, many proposals contain large amounts of repetitive information. For example, the background of the company, the skills and resumes of key personnel within the company, the background information on the customer as well as many other types of information may be repeated between similar proposals made by a particular company. If the compilation of this shared information must be repeated for each proposal made by a company, this activity represents a significant wasted expense for the company.
Companies which bid on contracts issued by the federal government, for example, are allowed to include within their proposals an allocation of money for bid and proposal activities. In other words, the federal government in effect pays for a certain percentage of the dollars of the money spent by companies in preparing the bids and proposals for federal contracts. As such, if a company can reduce the amount of time and money spent on the preparation of the compilation of information and preparation of formal proposals for federal contracts, the company can dramatically increase its return on investment and potentially reduce the amount bid for a contract to increase the likelihood that a contract will be awarded to the company. As such, if a company can increase the efficiency in which it can prepare formal bids and proposals for contracts, it can realize more profit and be awarded more contracts. In the past, there has been little effort to use modern data processing technology to compile and store business information which can be used in contract proposals.
Accordingly, a need has arisen for a business information repository and retrieval system that allows for information that can be shared among many proposals to be stored and retrieved using modern data base and data processing techniques.
Accordingly, a business information repository and retrieval system and method of operation are provided that substantially eliminate and reduce disadvantages and problems associated with prior systems.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, a system is provided that comprises a user interface that is coupled to and interacts with a business information control system. The business information control system accesses business information abstracts using a search engine. Once a particular piece of business information is identified using the business information abstracts, the business information control system can use a data access manager to retrieve the raw data associated with the business information abstract selected.